The Long, Sad, Violent History of Democrats'
Racial Hatred for Blacks

It has always seemed unnatural and unwise
to me whenever I hear someone who's been slandered by a particularly
egregious lie reply that they're not going to dignify that accusation
with a response.

For it has always been crystal clear to me that whenever your honor,
integrity and reputation are called into question that you should be
quick, thorough and – when circumstances demand – quite loud in defense
of them.

Otherwise, people will assume that the accusation must carry some
weight and the falsity levied against you just might end up sticking.

That's what has happened to the political party that I belong to – the
Republicans. For decades the Party of Lincoln has been under almost
constant assault for being "racist" and "openly hostile" to blacks.

However, nothing could be further from the truth – but you would never
know it by the party's spineless, practically nonexistent defense of its
record on race and civil rights.

From the days of Lincoln until the present, blacks have had no better
friend, party-wise, than the Republicans. Since its inception in the
mid-19th century, the GOP has built an exemplary record on civil rights,
particularly if you want to use the Democrat Party as a comparison.

The party's first president, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation
Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, the height of the Civil War, squelching any
chance that the European powers of the day would intervene in the
conflict in favor of the Confederacy. With the stroke of his pen, Lincoln
destroyed the last real hope the Confederacy had for a victory.

Soon after the war ended, it was a Republican-controlled Congress that
rammed through the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution
that, among other things, abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection
and due process and addressed blacks' right to vote.

In the late 19th century, Democrat governors and Democrat-controlled
state legislatures in the South couldn't pass Jim Crow laws fast enough.
Those Democrats created a nearly century-long, legal racial caste system
that relegated blacks to the lowest educational, political, economic and
social strata. I have family members who grew up under Jim Crow. To hear
them tell it, it weren't no joke.

And let us not forget that during the same period it was Democrats
throughout the United States who organized and ran America's premier
terrorist organization – the Ku Klux Klan.

And speaking of the Klan, remember the great Democrat President
Woodrow Wilson? After a screening of D.W. Griffith's paean to the Ku Klux
Klan, "Birth of a Nation," Wilson, turned-movie critic, said of the film:
"It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it
is all so terribly true."

Needless to say, the NAACP had a different outlook. After its viewing,
the civil rights organization was mortified to the point of launching a
nationwide protest in 1915 against the film. The group was equally
appalled by President Wilson's comments and it launched a public protest
against him.

Before we move on, one more thing about President Wilson. He was the
president who led our nation into WWI with the ringing declaration that
it was to make the world "safe for democracy." In Woodrow's mind, though,
"democracy" applied to everyone except those annoying little dark-skinned
people in America who are always clamoring for civil rights. In 1913,
Wilson introduced segregation into the federal government.

Yes, dear readers, the man who is worshipped as the utmost
"progressive" (where and by who have you heard that term used lately?) of
his time allowed federal officials to segregate "toilets, cafeterias and
work" areas of various federal departments.

It was left to Wilson's successor, Republican Warren G. Harding to
scrap the segregation policy. And Warren G. didn't stop there. In 1922,
Harding delivered a bold speech in Birmingham, Ala., (A Democrat
stronghold that was later known by blacks as "Bombingham") in which he
called for black equality. Up to then, no U.S. president had ever spoken
so forcefully about civil rights.

Harding was elected in 1920. Funny thing about the Republican Party
platform that Harding ran under. It called for federal anti-lynching
legislation. Guess which party didn't? If you said Democrat, go to the
head of the line.

Moving on, in answer to the burgeoning civil rights movement in the
'50s, it was Democrat governors and Democrat-controlled state
legislatures in the South that placed the Confederate battle flag on
their state capitol flags. It's an issue that continues to inflame racial
passions even today.

In 1957, Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, called out his
state's National Guard to prevent the integration of Central High School
in Little Rock. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent U.S.
troops to the city to escort nine frightened black teens into the school
past riotous mobs inflamed by Faubus' defiance of a federal court order.
Faubus was a Democrat. Eisenhower was a Republican.

On June 11, 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace stood in the doorway of
the University of Alabama to block its integration. Wallace was a
Democrat. Now, I grant you, John F. Kennedy was the Democrat president
who federalized the Alabama National Guard and ordered its units to the
university to force its doors open to black students. But it's not
generally known that the then-Sen. Kennedy – with an eye on the Democrat
presidential nomination for 1960 – voted against the Civil Rights Act of
1957, the law that really got the ball rolling on federal civil rights
legislation.

And it was Kennedy's brother, Robert, who in 1964 assisted the FBI's
efforts to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by approving the
wiretapping of the man considered the heart and soul of the civil rights
movement.

And to think at one time you could find in black homes across the
nation what I used to call the Black Person's Trinity: chintzy,
black-velvet portraits of JFK, RFK and Dr. King painted side by side.

As far as other important civil rights legislation, the 1964 Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would never have became law
if not for Republican senators and congressmen whose overwhelming support
offset extreme Democrat opposition.

Now honesty demands that I admit that I have never been in favor of
affirmative action programs. As a black man I find them demeaning, and as
an American, divisive. But that's an argument for another day. However,
the fact remains that it was President Nixon who implemented the first
affirmative action program with the Philadelphia Plan in the late 1960s.
The plan required government contractors to set goals and timetables for
hiring minorities. Nixon was a Republican.

Sure, some will say that it's all well and good to cite the historical
record, but what about now? What have the Republicans done of late? I
begin by pointing out that Democrats continue to demonstrate a curious
affinity for standing in schoolhouse doors, especially when black
children are involved.

But of late, Democrats are not trying to keep black children out, but
in. In public opinion polls on school choice, blacks overwhelmingly favor
vouchers to rescue their children from failing schools. No one knows
better the damage that poor schools can do to their children's future and
communities than blacks. Republicans are in favor of school choice.
Democrats aren't.

Also in more contemporary times, President Bush appointed two blacks
to the highest positions in government ever occupied by blacks in
America. Today, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary
of State Colin Powell are very powerful, influential members of the Bush
administration. Powell, in fact, is fourth in the succession line for the
presidency.

Oh, by the way, do you know who is third in line? Sen. Robert Byrd of
West Virginia. Old "Sheets" himself. The same Byrd of the "white niggers"
comments on March 5, 2001, and who was a member of the KKK. And Sen. Byrd
was not just any old member. No, sir. He was a "grand kleagle" – a
recruiter!

Does anyone remember the late war with Iraq? It lasted about a minute
but you may have had a chance to notice that the vice chief of operations
at Central Command was a brotha – Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.

And let's not let the "fair and free" press off the hook. Back when
Jim Crow and segregation were "the law of the land" in the South, the
press served as cheerleaders for all those kind, compassionate Democrats
as they lovingly lynched black people by the hundreds on a yearly basis.

Small wonder that the press behaved as badly as it did, though. The
people who ran those papers, which proudly featured the brutalized and
desecrated bodies of black lynching victims on their front pages quite
frequently, were all Democrats.

Today, whenever a Republican says anything that can be twisted by
Democrats and race hustlers to smack the least bit of racism, the press
is quick to pounce on him like Jesse Jackson on a bag of stolen federal
dollars.

The hypocrisy of the press on matters of race is appalling. Just take
a walk into your average newsroom and tell me what you see? Wait, I'll
save you the trip – a sea of white faces and sprinkled here and there, a
black face or two. Or better still, tune in to any one of the numerous
weekly Sunday news shows and what you'll find is overwhelming white.

Now here's a homework assignment – what political party do you think
most of the members of the press belong to? Here's a hint – Democrat.

I need not end here. I could go on all day citing example after
example on this matter (Does the name Bull Connor ring a bell, for
instance? A Democrat. Hah!). But it would be heartening indeed if the
next time accusations of racism are hurled against them, that Republicans
would grow a spine and quickly, thoroughly and – when circumstances
demand – quite loudly defend their honor, integrity and reputation.

Toogood Reports
contributor and "Best of the Web" award-winning writer Perry Drake is a
professional journalist in Plainfield, Ill. He is a great American
conservative who writes with a unique perspective on the issues of the
day. Perry is married and has two children. You can email him at
pdrake4153@cs.com.